Bribri

Bribri (autonymously I-ñe' yiwö, "my own people's tongue") is a Chibchan language of the Talamanca sub-branch, spoken by around 7,000 indigenous Bribri people in the Talamanca highlands of southeastern Costa Rica and small parts of Panama. Linguistically, Bribri is most closely related to Cabécar (cjp) — its sister Talamanca language — and more distantly to other Chibchan languages of the Isthmo-Colombian region. Bribri exhibits typical Chibchan features: tonal contrasts (low/falling/high), an unusual sound inventory with retroflex and labialized consonants, ergative-absolutive case alignment, and noun classes by animacy. The Bribri have maintained a strong cultural identity through their matrilineal clan structure and traditional shamanism (the awá tradition), with significant revitalization efforts since the 1977 Costa Rica Indigenous Law established Bribri territorial protection.